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The Public Face of Chinatown: Actresses, Actors, Playwrights, and Audiences of Chinatown Theaters in San Francisco during the 1920s

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  14 April 2011

NANCY YUNHWA RAO
NANCY YUNHWA RAO*
Affiliation:
[email protected]
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Abstract

In the twentieth century, elaborate and prosperous Chinatown theaters in New York and San Francisco (from the 1920s to the early 1930s) constituted a golden age of Cantonese opera in the United States, a vivid musical life that has been almost completely expunged from U.S. cultural memory. Seeking a historical narrative for this musical past—preserving those vivid sonorities and glamorous images that “threaten to disappear irretrievably”—entails an examination of the actresses, actors, musicians, and playwrights who enlivened the stages of these opera theaters, as well as the audiences who flocked to see them. In particular, this study sheds light on the significance of the performers named on the daily playbills and pictured in newspapers or on immigration bond papers. The images and sonorities extend beyond the bounds of the theaters to epitomize the Chinese community. The study not only offers a significant window into the interior layers of the music lives of Chinese America, but also reflects on the Chinatown community's sense of its musical and artistic self.

Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of the Society for American Music , Volume 5 , Issue 2 , May 2011 , pp. 235 - 270
Copyright
Copyright © The Society for American Music 2011

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References

References

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Chinese Theater Playbills, Asian American Collection, Ethnic Library, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Chung Sai Yat Po (China Daily), 1921–30Google Scholar
Da Han Gong Bao (Chinese Times), 1915–31Google Scholar
Min Qi Ri Bao (Chinese Nationalist Daily), 1927–31Google Scholar
Shao Nian Zhongguo Chenbao (The Young China), 1922–30Google Scholar
Shen Bao, 1920–30Google Scholar
Yue Hua Bao, 1927–9Google Scholar
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Shimakawa, Karen. National Abjection: The Asian American Body Onstage. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
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Sundar, Pavitra. “Meri Awaaz Suno: Women, Vocality, and Nation in Hindi Cinema.” Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism 8/1 (2007): 144–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tick, Judith, and Beaudoin, Paul, eds. Music in the USA: A Documentary Companion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Tsui, Kitty. The Words of a Woman Who Breathes Fire. Iowa City: Iowa City Women's Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Wen, Zhi Peng. “Yueju Nuban Zhi Chutan” (A Preliminary Study of Female Troupes). In Yue Ju Yan Yao Hui Lun Wen Ji (Papers and Proceedings of the International Seminar on Cantonese Opera), ed. Liu, Ching-Chih and Sinn, Elizabeth, 367–90. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Centre of Asian Studies, 1995.Google Scholar
Xi Yang, Nu. “Xin Zhou Xiao Zhuan” (Biography of Xin Zhou: The Wife's Memoir). Guangzhou Wen Shi Zi Liao 42 (1990): 242–58.Google Scholar
Yung, Bell. Cantonese Opera: Performance as Creative Process. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Yung, Judy. San Francisco's Chinatown. Chicago: Arcadia Publishing, 2006.Google Scholar
Yung, Sai-Shing. “Moving Body: The Interactions between Chinese Opera and Action Cinema.” In Hong Kong Connections: Transnational Imagination in Action Cinema, ed. Morris, Meaghan, Li, Siu-leung, and Ching-kiu, Stephen Chan, 21–34. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press; Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Yung, Sai-Shing. “Recording Cantonese Opera and Music in the 1920s and 1930s from a Viewpoint of Cultural History.” Journal of Chinese Studies 12 (2003): 473–502.Google Scholar
Zhang, Yihe. Yi Zhen Feng, Liu Xia Liao Qian Gu Jue Chang. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Zheng, Su. Claiming Diaspora: Music, Transnationalism, and Cultural Politics in Asian/Chinese America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
“The 1920s: Media: Overview.” American Decades. Encyclopedia.com. http://www.encyclopedia.com.Google Scholar
Chinese Exclusion Files, Immigration and Naturalization Service, National Archives and Records Administration, Record Group 85 (Northwest region, Northeast region, and Washington, D.C.).Google Scholar
Chinese Theater Playbills, Asian American Collection, Ethnic Library, University of California, Berkeley.Google Scholar
Chung Sai Yat Po (China Daily), 1921–30Google Scholar
Da Han Gong Bao (Chinese Times), 1915–31Google Scholar
Min Qi Ri Bao (Chinese Nationalist Daily), 1927–31Google Scholar
Shao Nian Zhongguo Chenbao (The Young China), 1922–30Google Scholar
Shen Bao, 1920–30Google Scholar
Yue Hua Bao, 1927–9Google Scholar
Anonymous. “Music, Old Favorites.” Time, 24 March 1923.Google Scholar
Cavarero, Adriana. For More than One Voice: Toward a Philosophy of Vocal Expression. Translated with an introduction by Paul A. Kottman. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2005.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Chan, Sau Yan, and Sai, Shing Yung. “Cantonese Operatic Clubs in New York Chinatown: A Fieldwork Report.” In Red Boat on the Canal: Cantonese Opera in New York Chinatown, ed. Duchesne, Isabelle, 70–99. New York: Museum of Chinese in the Americas, 2000.Google Scholar
Chang, Gordon, Johnson, Mark, and Karlstrom, Paul, eds. Asian American Art: A History, 1850–1970. Stanford: Stanford University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Crowe, Michael F., et al. San Francisco Art Deco. Chicago: Arcadia Publishing, 2007.Google Scholar
Duchesne, Isabelle, “A Collection's Riches: Into the Fabric of a Community.” In Red Boat on the Canal: Cantonese Opera in New York Chinatown, ed. Duchesne, Isabelle, 16–69. New York: Museum of Chinese in the Americas, 2000.Google Scholar
Dyer, Richard. Heavenly Bodies: Film Stars and Society. London: British Film Institute, 1986; 2nd ed., New York: Routledge, 2003.Google Scholar
Goldstein, Joshua. Drama Kings: Players and Publics in the Re-creation of Peking Opera, 1870–1937. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heriot, Angus. The Castrati in Opera. London: Calder and Boyars, 1975.Google Scholar
Jiang, Jin. Women Playing Men: Yue Opera and Social Change in Twentieth-Century Shanghai. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2009.Google Scholar
Lai, Bak-goeng, and Geing-ming, Wong. History of Cantonese Opera. Beijing: Chinese Theatre Press, 1988.Google Scholar
Lam, Fung Shan. “A Study of Cantonese Opera Scripts of the 1920s and 1930s.” Master's thesis, University of Hong Kong, 1997.Google Scholar
Lee, Leo Ou-fan. Shanghai Modern: The Flowering of a New Urban Culture in China, 1930–1945. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1999.Google Scholar
Lei, Daphne. Operatic China: Staging Chinese Identity across the Pacific. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Li, Siu Leung. Cross-Dressing in Chinese Opera. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2007.Google Scholar
Liu, Guo-Xing. “Yueju Yiren Zai Haiwaide Shenghuo Ji Huodong” (Life and Activity of Cantonese Opera Performers Overseas). Guangzhou Wen Shi Zi Liao 21 (1977): 172–88.Google Scholar
Moon, Krystyn. Yellowface: Creating the Chinese in American Popular Music and Performance, 1850s–1920s. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Moy, James. Marginal Sights: Staging the Chinese in America. Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1993.Google Scholar
Ng, Wing Chung. “Chinatown Theatre as Transnational Business: New Evidence from Vancouver during the Exclusion Era.” British Columbia Studies 148 (Winter 2005/06): 25–54.Google Scholar
Rao, Nancy Yunhwa. “The Color of Music Heritage: Chinese America in American Ultra-Modern Music.” Journal of Asian American Studies 12 (2009): 83–119.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rao, Nancy Yunhwa. “Returning to New York: Manhattan's Chinese Opera Theaters and the Golden Age of Cantonese Opera in North America.” In Collected Essays on Cantonese Opera: Historical Development over the Last Two Hundred Years, ed. Shen, Zhou Shi and En, Zheng Ning, 261–94. Hong Kong: Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2008.Google Scholar
Rao, Nancy Yunhwa. “Songs of the Exclusion Era: New York's Cantonese Opera Theaters in the 1920s.” American Music 20/4 (2002): 399–444.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rao, Nancy Yunhwa. “Racial Essence and Historical Invisibility: Chinese Opera in New York, 1930.” Cambridge Opera Journal 12/2 (2000): 135–62.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Reynolds, Margaret. “Ruggiero's Deceptions, Cherubino's Distractions.” In En Travesti Women, Gender Subversion, Opera, ed. Blackmer, Corinne and Smith, Patricia, 134–51. New York: Columbia University Press, 1995.Google Scholar
Riddle, Ronald. Flying Dragons, Flowing Streams: Music in the Life of San Francisco's Chinese. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Rodescape, Lois. “Celestial Drama in The Golden Hills: The Chinese Theater in California, 1849–1869.” California Historical Society Quarterly 23 (1944): 97–116.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Shimakawa, Karen. National Abjection: The Asian American Body Onstage. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press, 2002.Google Scholar
Song, Zuanyou. “Yue Ju Zai Jiu Shanghai De Yan Chu” (The Performance of Cantonese Opera in Historical Shanghai). Shi Lin 1 (1994): 64–70.Google Scholar
Sundar, Pavitra. “Meri Awaaz Suno: Women, Vocality, and Nation in Hindi Cinema.” Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism 8/1 (2007): 144–79.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tick, Judith, and Beaudoin, Paul, eds. Music in the USA: A Documentary Companion. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008.Google Scholar
Tsui, Kitty. The Words of a Woman Who Breathes Fire. Iowa City: Iowa City Women's Press, 1983.Google Scholar
Wen, Zhi Peng. “Yueju Nuban Zhi Chutan” (A Preliminary Study of Female Troupes). In Yue Ju Yan Yao Hui Lun Wen Ji (Papers and Proceedings of the International Seminar on Cantonese Opera), ed. Liu, Ching-Chih and Sinn, Elizabeth, 367–90. Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Centre of Asian Studies, 1995.Google Scholar
Xi Yang, Nu. “Xin Zhou Xiao Zhuan” (Biography of Xin Zhou: The Wife's Memoir). Guangzhou Wen Shi Zi Liao 42 (1990): 242–58.Google Scholar
Yung, Bell. Cantonese Opera: Performance as Creative Process. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989.Google Scholar
Yung, Judy. San Francisco's Chinatown. Chicago: Arcadia Publishing, 2006.Google Scholar
Yung, Sai-Shing. “Moving Body: The Interactions between Chinese Opera and Action Cinema.” In Hong Kong Connections: Transnational Imagination in Action Cinema, ed. Morris, Meaghan, Li, Siu-leung, and Ching-kiu, Stephen Chan, 21–34. Durham, N.C.: Duke University Press; Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Yung, Sai-Shing. “Recording Cantonese Opera and Music in the 1920s and 1930s from a Viewpoint of Cultural History.” Journal of Chinese Studies 12 (2003): 473–502.Google Scholar
Zhang, Yihe. Yi Zhen Feng, Liu Xia Liao Qian Gu Jue Chang. Hong Kong: Oxford University Press, 2005.Google Scholar
Zheng, Su. Claiming Diaspora: Music, Transnationalism, and Cultural Politics in Asian/Chinese America. New York: Oxford University Press, 2010.Google Scholar
“The 1920s: Media: Overview.” American Decades. Encyclopedia.com. http://www.encyclopedia.com.Google Scholar